On 2016-09-09 05:07, Ray Jewhurst wrote:
Lesson learned. I will stick to Bitsavers for my info. As far as rotate,
I did know about that and because of that and other reasons, I am going
to back off on the S and I think I will concentrate on the Straight-8.

Manuals are always good. Sometimes drawing are even better. But it does take much more time to read through than a FAQ. :-)

(And personally, I think that anyone who wants to deal with an 8/S must be crazy... :-) )

        Johnny



On Sep 8, 2016 11:01 PM, "Johnny Billquist" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    On 2016-09-09 04:40, Ray Jewhurst wrote:

        My source pertaining to the serial bus on the S being the basis
        for the
        Omnibus I got straight from the FAQ. To be more specific it
        pertained to
        the easy configurability of the 2 busses.


    The FAQ isn't always right. :-)
    I don't think it makes any sense at all to compare the 8/S with the
    Omnibus. I just did a quick check, and some controllers were usable
    both on the straight 8 and the 8/S, such as the PC02, PC03, CR03C,
    AA01A and probably others... So I would say that the straight 8 and
    8/S was pretty much the same, as far as peripherals were concerned.
    And as far as I remember, these were pretty much the same on the 8/I
    as well. Check the manuals if you want more details. :-)

    And I just found the difference in the OPR instruction for the 8/S
    compared to other models, that I had some vague memory of.
    On the 8/S, the Increment AC bit cannot be combined with any
    rotates, since they are both done in the same clock cycle.
    As far as I can remember, only the 8/S have this property, and on
    other models, it is a clearly defined sequence of the different OPR
    bits, with increment happening before rotates.

            Johnny



        On Sep 8, 2016 10:27 PM, "Johnny Billquist" <[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>
        <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:

            Bob, you are right in that the PDP-5 used address 0 for the
        PC, and
            put the saved PC at address 1 at interrupts, which is not
        compatible
            with the PDP-8, and means any interrupt driven code will not
        work
            across the PDP-5 and PDP-8.

            Not sure what you mean by 0/1 for interrupts. Maybe you mean
        that 0
            is where the pre-interrupt PC is saved, and execution starts
        at 1?

            Anyway... As far as the early PDP-8 models go, the 8/S is
        the odd
            ball out. As far as I can remember, a bunch of OPR
        combinations did
            not work the same (or at all) on the 8/S, compared to any other
            PDP-8 model. So special care needs to be taken when you write
            something for an 8/S. Apart from that, the machines are mostly
            upward compatible, indeed. The Omnibus machines added a few new
            things, but yes, you normally use various undocumented
        opcodes to
            tell the machines apart. RAR RTR is the one I know the best, but
            there are probably others too.

            Kermit-12 is a good source if people want to check how to
        tell which
            model it is running on, since that program does a pretty
        decent job
            of identifying pretty much all machines.

            Ray Jewhurst mentioned that the serial bus of the 8/S was
        the basis
            for the Omnibus - that is backwards and wrong in several
        ways. First
            of all, I'm not sure the bus was serial on the 8/S. The CPU
        was serial.
            Second, the Omnibus is most definitely not serial, and I also
            seriously doubt there are any relationship at all between the
            Omnibus and anything on the 8/S. Third, I have some vague memory
            that the Negibus was used on 8/S, but I should probably look
        that up.

                    Johnny



            On 2016-09-09 03:53, Bob Supnik wrote:

                The PDP-5 is, in fact, not all that compatible, because
        it used
                memory
                location 0 as the PC, pushing the interrupt locations to
        1/2,
                instead of
                0/1. So any program requiring interrupts will not work
        on a -5
                vs an -8.
                The PDP-5 had an IO halt/restart facility, modeled on
        the PDP-1 and
                dropped from the PDP-8, which allowed an IOT to "wait" for
                completion
                without looping and testing a flag. It does not seem to have
                supported
                an EAE or extended memory.

                The PDP-8 family (8, 8/S, 8/I and variants, 8/E and
        variants,
                8/A) are
                superset compatible for defined operations. It's possible to
                tell them
                apart based on their behavior on undefined operations.
        The code for
                identifying a PDP-8 is out there, but I don't have it at
        hand. I
                remember that the behavior of RAL RAR and RTL RTR was
        one way of
                telling
                the 8, 8/S, and 8/I apart.

                Most of the work for supporting models would be in the
        peripherals,
                particularly the ones that are 'compatible' across the
        line (reader,
                punch, terminals, clock). The pre-Omnibus machines used the
                older style
                IOP1, IOP2, IOP4 pulse methodology; the Omnibus machines can
                decode all
                8 possible combinations. Beyond that, peripherals tended
        to be
                distinct:
                the RK8 for the 8/I vs the RK8E for the Omnibus
        machines; the
                Type 552
                DECtape controller for the -5 and -8 vs the TC01/TC08
        for the later
                machines.

                The "CMOS 8s" are a whole different kettle of fish. They
        were
                only used
                in word processing/DECmate systems and had many unique
        features.

                /Bob

                On 9/8/2016 9:10 PM, [email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>
                <mailto:[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

                    Message: 1
                    Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 18:57:52 -0400
                    From: Ray Jewhurst<[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>
                    <mailto:[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>>>
                    To: simh<[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]
        <mailto:[email protected]>>>
                    Subject: [Simh] PDP-8: The possibilities?
                    Message-ID:


        <camfeaable-s+qszmm4axyr8pqhx3dpkiadjb_auxqo5hahe...@mail.gmail.com
        
<mailto:camfeaable-s%[email protected]>

        
<mailto:camfeaable-s%[email protected]
        
<mailto:camfeaable-s%[email protected]>>>
                    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

                    After both reading and participating in some recent
                    discussions, I got to
                    thinking that maybe the array of PDP-8 models could
        be better
                    represented.
                    I say this because from what I have read very early
        PDP-8
                    code is not
                    100%
                    compatible with later models conversely the PDP-5 is
                    compatible with the
                    early code and likewise uses a negibus like the
        Straight-8.
                    I thank this
                    could be a rewarding experience for some of us and
        since I
                    can't work I
                    would be able to help coordinate, write pseudo code
        and beta
                    test. If
                    anyone is interested in this let the discussion begin.

                    Thanks
                    Ray


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            --
            Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                              ||  on a psychedelic trip
            email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
        <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>             ||
            Reading murder books
            pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" -
        B. Idol

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    --
    Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                      ||  on a psychedelic trip
    email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>             ||
    Reading murder books
    pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol



--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: [email protected]             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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